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Merkel’s Bavarian ally pledges unity on refugees

KARLSRUHE, Germany — Angela Merkel’s chief ally from Bavaria, Horst Seehofer, sought reconciliation with the chancellor Tuesday as a guest at her party congress, pledging unity on the refugee issue that threatened to drive a wedge between them.

Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and Seehofer’s Christian Social Union (CSU) jointly make up the conservative bloc that leads Germany’s coalition government, where the Social Democrats are junior partners.

But the Bavarians‘ angry response to Merkel’s decision in September to open the borders to Syrian refugees led Seehofer to chastise chancellor at her traditional guest appearance at the CSU congress in Munich last month. The expectation was that he would be equally combative in his return appearance at the CDU congress this week in Karlsruhe, western Germany.

“We have an excellent chancellor,” Seehofer told the CDU faithful in a speech than ran 20 minutes over the scheduled half hour.

He may have been mollified by Merkel’s own gesture at the CDU congress on Monday to address the concerns of the right wing of her party — fears that are shared with the CSU — about Germany being swamped by an estimated 1 million refugees expected to arrive this year, which would be four times the level of 2014.

“We will reduce the number of refugees noticeably,” Merkel had told the congress a day earlier, in a formula that persuaded the hardliners in her own party to drop demands for fixed upper limits — Obergrenzen in German — to the number of refugees.

“Our followers expect us to solve the refugee crisis together,” responded Seehofer, to modest applause in the conference center.

One CDU delegate from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Notburga Kunert, welcomed the Bavarian premier’s speech, saying: “It feels like the two sister parties are coming closer to each other again. And that’s important, because Germany’s towns and villages are reaching the limit of their capacity when it comes to dealing with the refugee crisis.”

Other delegates implied that Seehofer had been right to chide their chancellor back in November, and suggested that this may have influenced Merkel’s decision to find a compromise.

“The way Seehofer did it lacked good manners, but his criticism was appropriate,” said Nicolas Soetter, a member of the CDU’s more conservative youth wing Junge Union from the state of Schleswig-Holstein.

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zoe

We are not part of German Reich…..can not work if only one country wants to decide the migrant”s policy of europe and J.C.J doing what germany dictates ….no any other country,nur EU can decide who we want to live with!!!!

Posted on 12/15/15 | 11:15 PM CET

Steve

Seehofer is a pathetic coward and disgrace, who will go down in history as the one that let Merkel trample all over him, Bavaria, and the German Constitution to destroy Germany and Europe instead of taking a stand in line with duty and courage.